Tobacco Funds to Pay for Disease Research

Four major tobacco companies have agreed to spend $300-million to create a non-profit group to study early detection and cure of diseases associated with smoking.

The agreement was part of a $349-million settlement announced this month that ended a landmark class-action lawsuit over secondhand smoke.

Some 60,000 non-smoking flight attendants sued the tobacco companies — Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, Philip Morris, and R. J. Reynolds — in Dade County Circuit Court in Miami. They charged that illnesses they contracted were caused by secondhand smoke.

According to the settlement, the research group will be managed and directed by a board of trustees to be nominated by the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt of Miami.

Officials representing the tobacco companies could provide no further details on the research organization.

The tobacco industry is also under fire in England.

The Cancer Research Campaign — the country’s leading cancer-research charity — said it planned to boycott academic institutions that accept donations from tobacco companies. The charity’s announcement was prompted by Cambridge University’s acceptance last year of a $2.4-million grant from a tobacco company for a chair in international relations.